One of them belonged to Halley, and was put up by him a hundred and thirty years ago; another is an old brazen quadrant, with which many valuable observations were made in by-gone times; and another, an old iron quadrant, still fixed in the stone pier to which it was first attached. Some of the huge telescopes that once found place in this old Observatory, have been sent away. One went to the Cape of Good Hope, and has been useful there. Another of the unsatisfactory, and now unused instruments, had a tube twenty-five feet long, whose cool and dark interior was so pleasant to the spiders that, do what they would, the astronomers could not altogether banish the persevering insects from it. Spin they would; and, spite of dusting and cleaning, and spider-killing, spin they did; and, at length, the savans got more instruments and less patience, and the spiders were left in quiet possession. This has been pleasantly spoken of as an instance of poetical justice. It is but fair that spiders should, at times, have the best of astronomers, for astronomers rob spiders for the completion of their choicest instruments. No fabric of human construction is fine enough to strain across the eyepiece of an important telescope, and opticians preserve a particular race of spiders, that their webs may be taken for that purpose. The spider lines are strained across the best instruments at Greenwich and elsewhere; and when the spinners of these beautifully fine threads disturbed the accuracy of the tube in the western wing of the old Observatory, it was said to be but fair retaliation for the robberies the industrious insects had endured. A narrow stair leads from the unused rooms of the old Observatory to its leaded roof, whence a magnificent view is obtained; the park, the hospital, the town of Greenwich, and the windings of the Thames, and, gazing further, London itself comes grandly into the prospect. The most inveterate astronomer could scarcely fail to turn for a moment from the wonders of the heavens to admire these glories of the earth. From the leads, two turrets are reached, where the first constantly active operations in this portion of the building, are in progress.